


Among The Ones They Do

by Mad Poetess (mpoetess)



Series: Leaving Marks [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Established Relationship, Kink, M/M, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:16:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mpoetess/pseuds/Mad%20Poetess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Companion piece to <i>Indelible.</i> Here's a game they don't play.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Among The Ones They Do

Here's a game they don't play:

They don't play "Whose hand is this?" when it's Xander's, and the willingly upturned backside it's landing on, the squirming, shuddering form across his lap, belong to Spike.

Sometimes they pretend a little -- or a lot -- about the 'willingly,' but the other, where certain nights when everything's gone still and he's too damn twitchy _not_ to think too much, Xander watches the drooping platinum head, hears, _feels_ the groans, and wonders which words Spike's holding back, and to whom, who's punishing him really, for which hundred year old wrongs... They don't play that.

Not since that night when -- overtired in that ground-down, dusty way of the longest day ever until the next double-shift -- Xander _asked_. In the ringing silence that was the echo of a slap, with a sharpness in his voice that hit harder than the palm of his hand ever could, harder than anything he'd ever gripped when flesh just wasn't enough to do the job.

Xander couldn't -- can't -- say why. Why that extra twist of meanness in a question he'd always promised to keep to himself, because it didn't matter, he would be whatever, whoever, Spike needed him to be. Only fair, for what Spike is to him: lover, taunter, pinochle partner, safest confessor ever since Xander can always claim Spike's lying if he tells.

But he asked, and Spike for a moment gasped like his lungs had forgotten what he was, the rest of him suddenly rigid. Spine tree-trunk straight, head whipped around and wide eyes staring back. No hint of hurt at first, just mystified, and whatever part of Xander pushed the question out in the first place was sickly disappointed. Then the lowering of Spike's eyelids, thinned-out lips, and Xander felt the sickness come for real, deep in the pit of his gut.

Silence warred with 'sorry' for long enough -- just precious seconds where Xander couldn't make his lips move, much as he wanted to, more than anything -- that it didn't matter anymore. Because shift and creak and the world turned upside down, and he stared at a vampire's toes, remembered just how _fast_ Spike was.

Some things he forgets sometimes, like Spike forgets not to breathe -- until it was _Xander's_ toes digging in the carpet, and _Xander's_ breath held and then gulped, and Spike's hand splatting hard against his ass, red and redder to the slo-mo beat of his words. "You. Dim. Fucking." And two smacks there, one for each syllable. "Twat! It. Is. Only. Ever. You." And others, terrible, tender, true, hot against his skin like they were leather in Spike's hand.

If Xander screwed his eyes shut so tight that nothing could leak out and there were tiny glowfish in the darkness in his head, if he shoved his ass up higher not for how hard it made him, but because goddammit, yes, he _deserved_ it, no one would ever know but him and Spike -- and Spike won't tell.

So. They don't play that anymore.

________

the end


End file.
